Is Faking your own death Illegal?:- A 47-year-old Massapequa, New York resident named Raymond Roth was detained on Wednesday, August 15, on suspicion of fabricating his own drowning at a New York beach in order to collect more than $400,000 in life insurance. In addition to conspiring and filing a fraudulent complaint, Roth was accused of insurance fraud. What if he hadn't been doing it for financial gain, though? Is it illegal to simply fake your own death?
Is faking your own death illegal?
The simple answer is- NO. Pseudocide, or pretending to die, is not strictly forbidden. To fake your own death, you’d need to break a number of laws, though.
Pseudocide isn’t always illegal, but there are so many inherent falsehoods in it that it’s nearly hard to legally pretend to drown. In 2012, James Quiggle, the director of communications for the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, said to Live Science, “Frankly, you’ll only be drowning in fraud.
Why people fake their own death?
Why bother pretending to be dead yourself?
People may commit pseudocide to receive life insurance proceeds, avoid paying off outstanding arrest warrants, avoid having to repay student, automobile, or housing loans, or to simply start over with a new name, leaving behind their relationship or employment issues.
While pseudocide is not expressly prohibited by federal or state law, those who conduct it may be charged with other offences like conspiracy, illegally collecting life insurance proceeds, tax evasion, having a spouse file a false police report, forging a death certificate, or failing to make loan payments.
Furthermore, even though it is technically possible to commit pseudocide without breaking the law, it is not possible to lawfully assume a new identity in the United States. Valid identification documentation is required by organisations including the Social Security Administration, the Department of Motor Vehicles, banks, and mortgage lenders. Fraud is committed when a fraudulent identity is used.
You might be fraudulent after faking a death by:
- Stealing a life insurance policy
- Impersonating your spouse as a con artist if he or she submits a false police complaint, evading federal and state taxes, or possibly breaking the terms of a court-ordered legal and financial agreement.
- The penalty for these offences, both criminal and civil, may be severe. Usually felonies, they may result in jail time, hefty fines, probation, and/or restitution.
Tim Dog, the rapper who pretended to be dead, had been making payments towards Esther Pilgrim’s $19,000 restitution since his 2010 grand larceny conviction. Pilgrim thinks that Blair undoubtedly defrauded millions of dollars from other people by persuading them to invest in an album he never intended to make, and that she is not the rapper’s only victim.
The purported death ruse Blair executed will have a lot of problems due to the court ruling.
You will be scamming every government institution that processes your new identification if you choose to come back from the dead with a new identity, not to mention your previous identity. Additionally, if you purchase a house or automobile under your new name, you are scamming new lenders.
Some Famous Personalities who Faked their own death:-
1877 // William Goodwin Geddes
William Goodwin Geddes is notable even if only for being the first person in Australia to allegedly fake his own death in order to get money. Surveyor Geddes was known for being a great swimmer and all-around athlete. However, Geddes mysteriously drowned in Queensland’s King John’s Creek on November 29, 1877.
A guy named Louis Sydney Brennan, who resembled Geddes almost exactly, was admitted to the Adelaide Asylum for the Insane in 1889. He had been committed after his longtime wife reported him to the authorities. Geddes and a police officer recognised one other despite Geddes’s parents’ claims that Brennan was not their son. Due to his involvement in the fraud, Geddes’ father was sued by the insurance company.
1930// Alfred Rouse
The Alfred Rouse narrative reads like a Law & Order episode. Rouse went out to fake his death by igniting his automobile with someone else’s body inside in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid paying child support for multiple illegitimate children.
He picked up a hitch-hiker and thrashed him with a mallet before putting him in the driver’s seat and lighting a match. Rouse believed that his crime would go unnoticed in the wee hours of the morning, but two witnesses saw him. After being apprehended, Rouse claimed that the automobile caught fire because he had left the hitchhiker alone with a burning cigar and requested him to add additional petrol canisters to the tank.